Challenge yourself to tat 25 motifs within the next 12 months and show us your progress. A motif can be a medallion, snowflake, heart, bookmark, butterfly, earrings or any small piece of tatting. Tell us where the pattern is from or if it's original. Post pictures on your blog, web page or photo page. Add a comment below the current post giving the location of your pictures and you will be added to the list of links.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Sharol is working on some motives to be used on her bag for the Tatted Treasures from Trash challenge. The red, white and blue thread on this Workbasket heart seemed like a good choice for the Memorial day weekend. The star she made is Sharol's own design.

Mark completed an exquisite Russian tape lace heart then did a pair of bobbin lace earrings "off the cuff" and finished up some thread from an earlier project making another original bobbinlace motif. Free time is great for getting things done.

Sylvia started a doily pattern from Mary Maynard's book intending to use part of it as a snood to cover her chignon. Her new hairdo doesn't allow for a chignon so now she'll finish the doily. She has also done a cross in a variegated thread and decided that she likes the effect.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Have you noticed how many of our participants have Etsy shops? It's a great way to get exposure for hand crafted items, since the buyers are looking for hand made goods and not mass produced merchandise.

Gail has been knitting and using mismatched dye lots to their best advantage. If she hadn't said anything I would have thought it was planned.

Elizabeth has just finished a busy tax season and now that it's over she's had time to open an Etsy shop. See all the lovely items she has for sale.

Sharon has been tatting flowers, Gerbera daisies, sort of. If they were done in yellow they could be sunflowers. PDF Select, the name of the PDF indexing software is done and just needs a little tweaking of the help files. Sharon will let us know more about it as soon as it's ready.

Ooooo Have you seen what Marilee has been doing? Scrumptious hand dyed colours and she's added them to her Etsy shop.

Melissa tatted a fabulous crinoline lady for a friend to use on a crazy quilt. It's gorgeous now and will be spectacular with embellishments. Melissa has also done a short movie showing how she makes a split ring. A wonderful way to show others how to tat. Melissa has an Etsy shop where she sells CQ fabrics and trims.

Sherry has been having an interesting time in her shop. In the midst of shaking up some glaze for a pot, it exploded - the glaze not the pot. There are some more mugs with tatting designs on them added to her Etsy shop and in her "spare" time Sherry created this cluny bookmark to be used in the online class.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I spent yesterday having an assessment done and I'm still hurting from it. It didn't seem all that bad at the time, but my leg has been bothering me ever since. OUCH! There haven't been a lot of posts since the last update so I figure I can just manage this and then I'm back to bed.

By the way, have you checked out the Tatting Treasures from Trash Blog? There are quite a few people signed up for it and lots of ideas percolating although so far most of the pictures are pairs of less than elegant jeans about to be put out of thei misery. Anyone can join in the fun and making a bag out of an old pair of jeans is quick and easy. Gina has even posted a movie showing you how it's done in only 3 minutes! If you'd like to join, send me your e-mail address so that you can start posting.

Mark has posted pictures of the AQS Paducah Quilt show. Lots of eye candy. There's a glitch in Yahoo but clicking on the empty blocks will take you to the pictures.

Azie has posted pictures of some cross stitched pendibules done for an exchange. I had to look up "pendibule" as I had no idea what it was. It's a triangular stuffed ornament made by decorating a square of fabric, folding it in half diagonally and stuffing it, then joining the points of the long side together and attaching a ribbon to hang it.

Martha has tatted this lovely Sugar and Spice Doily by Tina Neudorf from her book "Needle Tatting from the Heart" using size 30 Omega thread.Sherry shows us a picture of her tatted grape edging with all 5 shuttles still attached. There are designs that use more shuttles, but 5 is still quite enough. Sherry has been given one of her great grandmother's shuttles. This one is an Aero bobbin shuttle which she doesn't really like, but she'll use it because it was her great grandmother's.

Monday, May 21, 2007

We've had a couple more people finish their 25 goal. Isn't it nice to know that you can do it?

Arlene tatted this carnation with beads hoping for the effect of dew on the petals but it isn't quite what she was hoping for. She's going to try it again using white beads. Silver lined beads give the sparkling dew-y effect until the silver tarnishes, then it just looks awful. Arlene's not sure if she's finished her 25 motives yet so she's going to do a couple of Iris' doilies.Clyde shows a picture of one of the 3D floral displays done for Parks and Recreation done by his partner. Pretty awesome, or awesomely pretty.

Mark has finished tatting a heart and matching edging for a hanky. Isn't is just gorgeous? So delicate looking.Jon shows us some old tatting discovered when they had to clean out her MIL's house. She found the cloverleaf edging interesting and counted the stitches so that she could reproduce a section of the design. She remarked that one of the designs looks familiar. It is. I saw it in a public domain book this weekend, but I can't remember which one. She also found the little chair her MIL made to hold the egg given guests at the wedding reception. I can't imagine making all those little chairs.Sharon shows us a picture of her macaw.

Snowy tatted a lovely design in a variegated thread. This makes her 25th motif and now she's wondering what to do with her blog. Keep showing picture of tatting of course!Marilee has created some adorable earrings that have a lovely 3D effect. Aren't they wonderful?Laura shows us a picture of her finished friendship doily. She took the picture again on a darker background that makes the lace stand out more. Light colours photograph better on a dark surface and dark colours are better on a light surface. When there is both light and dark in a doily it can be hard to find a background that makes both look good. That's always a good thing to keep in mind when you are selecting the colours to use in a doily, especially if you have a particular location in mind for it.Charlene made it to the Palmettos gild meeting on Saturday and it sounds like they had a lot of fun. They worked an adorable 3D flower, then Charlene learned how to get a perfect onion ring and taught Hope how to needle tat. She managed to get some Opera size 20 thread and she worked up a sample to compare with some Rubi thread also size 20. What a difference in 2 size 20 threads.Marty tatted "Milena" from Tatted Doilies by Iris Niebach in DMC size 80 red ombre thread. The doily was sent out in a doily exchange and couldn't be posted until her partner had received it.Eliz has been doing some more work with the Valeire square. It will be a topic for the online class. Lots of things can be done with squares. Melissa has been working on some CQ blocks and embroidering a southern belle.

Patti has opened an Etsy store and has a lovely little purse decorated with black work for sale.

Sherry designed this sweet little grape edging. Then she got creative and daring and worked it in doing the grapes in alternating colours using 5 shuttles. Very clever.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

This is another post where several people have completed or nearly completed their 25 motives. Congratulations to everyone who has met their personal challenge.

Gail finished her knitting and laid it out on the floor to see how it looked. It seems the cats approve.

Clyde tatted the Astrid edging to be used by his daughter as a tiara for her prom. She'll look lovely in it. This finishes Clyde's 2nd set of 25 motives.

Mark finished tatting all of his hearts and framed them as gifts for Mother's day. He was asked to make a tatted heart in purple. This new design is done in pearl tatting and as Mark puts it, it's a positively purple pearl tatted heart done in Oliver Twist thread. He thinks this makes it 25.

Riet shows us pictures of Nora's birth announcement. Can you tell Riet is practicing to be a doting Grandma?

EeKoon has been stitching until it hurts-literally. The results were worth it as she has finished both a Mother's day gift and an exchange project. They are lovely pieces of work.

Melissa has finished her spring challenge block and she plans on framing it. The block is covered with many reminders of her home in Georgia.

Patti has been tatting but doesn't have any pictures to show us yet. She does have a picture that was taken of her standing beside a Viking, complete with ship.

Sherry tatted the Marchanne Bookmark by Judi Banashek in size 80 thread in a lovely minty green, or at least that's how it appears on my screen. Her latest endeavor is a bunch of tatted grapes. How cool.

LaRae has added 3 new motives to her blog. Two of them are original designs and the other is from a book she can't remember the name of. They are all pretty and that makes yet another person who has finished 25 motives.

Pamela has added a swarm - well not a swarm - just 3 bees to her collection of critters. Theses have been done in size 10 and 20 Flora. The pattern is from Martha Ess' book New Critters on the block.Melissa has learned to do split rings and made split ring bracelets for the kids. Alece finished embroidering her T-shirt and got to model it.Sherry made a sulu skirt and covered it with tatted butterflies and a tatted edging (15 feet of edging in size 80 thread). She decided that Mother's Day was a good day to wear it.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Just a short note to let everyone know that I have updated the links at the right. Those that I know have completed the challenge have been marked. It isn't possible for me to know that you are done unless you post the information in your blog. During the challenge some have numbered their pieces, but many have just posted them as they were completed. Even if I went through each blog and counted up the pictures shown I might not get it right, as sometimes we share previously done tatting to show a technique or thread or for some other reason. So if you are done and I haven't marked it, let me know.

Some people joined the challenge and for various reasons haven't been able to keep up with it. Those who haven't posted for a long time or whose blogs are no longer available I have moved to the bottom of the list. I don't have everyone's email address so I haven't been able to contact people to see what their plans are. For the moment I am assuming that they still want to participate. If you are at the bottom of the list and have discovered that there just isn't any tatting time available to you to complete the challenge, please let me know.

NOTE: The 25 Motif Challenge isn't over. The challenge was to tat 25 motives in a year and some people just started a couple of months ago. But what is the point of a challenge if we don't keep track so that we can congratulate you when you succeed?

I began today's update this morning and here the day is almost over and I'm just getting around to posting. Where does the time go?

Gail tatted Camilla one of the patterns from Tatted Bookmarks by Lene Bjorn. Gail likes these bookmarks because they all have fancy tassels.

Sharol's Red Hat chapter made cards. Hers is sporting a lovely wee butterfly done in a thread Sharol received in an exchange.

Sharon has tatted 25 motives, but they've all been multiples of the same thing, which wasn't what she had planned. There are 25 of them and they are done, so she thinks she'll move onto the denim bag challenge.

Jeanne has done a pair of earrings from a Snowgoose publication using 2 strands of Sulky thread. I love the colour.

Carol has been busy with yard work and her basket isn't progressing very fast. So in lieu of tatting she has posted an updated picture of her growing puppy.

Laura did one of the Tatted Rose Garden motives from the Big Book of Tatting using Flora thread. The yellow she had was too bright so she use DMC Cebelia instead.

Dawn has finished her 2nd batch of 25 motives with the derby hat from the Tatting Pattern Calendar. She has plans to do an edging for daughter's T-shirt that she made. She has also worked on a cross that was in the calendar, doing it from memory in size 8 perle cotton. Her latest project is a little flower using pearl tatting and daisy picot. Her long term project is an edging for a tablecloth. It's nice to have something lined up for when you have a spare minute or two.

Melissa has joined the Tatting Treasures from Trashdenim bag challenge and shows us how she is making the bag. She doesn't have a lot of tatting to add to it yet but she's working on it. The kids are making amazing progress on their embroidery and Melissa just has a little more tweaking to do on her CQ block.

Sherry has been playing around with all the new techniques that she is learning and came up with this cute design worked with 3 shuttles. The kiln has been put into good use lately too and Sherry has some new items with tatting designs on them available in her Etsy shop.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Such an amazing lot of tatting and more of our participants are finishing their challenge. The link for the new Tatting Treasures from Trash challenge is listed in the sidebar. Anyone interested in joining please send your email to me here so that I can add you to the list of contributors.

Arlene has added 2 more doilies to her blog and she thinks that makes 25. She needs to count them out and put them all on Flicker. While she's been busy tatting her hubby crafted Super Mario out of florist's foam for the prom.You have to see this for yourself.EeKoon finished off one of her stitching projects and picked up her tatting again. She did a little motif in size 10 thread and she's decided she doesn't like thick thread because it springs the points of the shuttle. She started the Beatrice doily from Iris Niebach's book and had to quit because she ran out of the variegated Anchor thread. So she started the Cornelia doily from the same book in Cebelia. She likes working with Cebelia because it's smooth and not stiff.

Marilee tried working with 2 strands of size 30 thread wound on the shuttle, one variegated and the other solid. Interesting effect and not as thick as the size 10 thread.

Martha was looking for a quick little motif to try out a new thread, DMC Quick Finish Senso Harlequin, so she used Debbie Flork's Kokopelli. The motif was a success, but the colour of the thread clashed with the garment. Pamela's place has been infested with fleas and she's looking to find something that will eat them. Pattern compliments of Jane Eborall.

Eliz has took the Valeire Square and made it into a yummy looking ice cream cone. The design offers a variety of challenges to the on-line tatting class. She wasn't able to join the class today as a flat tire delayed her arrival home. The time was put to good use working out another design idea and she'll post pictures of it later.

Melissa has been practicing shuttle tatting and she did these rosettes in size 10 Flora thread and turned them into necklaces for the girls. Simple and pretty. Melissa also posts the round robin blocks that she has back.Sherry's pamphlet has been a success and all of the Moms that received their tatted earrings really loved them. Now if she can just teach this little guy to tat...